This past President’s Day weekend, 3,578 fans converged on the Marriot Los Angeles Airport Hotel for Gallifrey One 2013, the largest and longest running Doctor Who convention in the world.

Sylvester McCoy rocked the house, of course, filling the huge assembly hall and being his usual charming self. This year we were a little more excited to see him since we had just seen him on the big screen in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit as the peculiar wizard Radagast the Brown.

There were panels about pretty much everything, covering every aspect of Doctor Who imaginable – including one called “The Next Doctor”, in which our own Liz Carlie of The Corsair’s Closet was featured as a panelist.

The convention raised a record $7,620 for their 2013 charity, the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer – and they did something they’ve never done before: the annual Blood Drive, managed by Kristine & Dennis Cherry with Liz Clarie (known to Krypton Radio fans as the masterminds behind our very popular weekly Doctor Who cosplay radio show, The Corsair’s Closet) actually had so many blood donors that the Red Cross ran out of blood donation bags.

As usual with Gallifrey One, one of the best things about it was who you got to meet in the common areas and hallways. We happily present our photo gallery of the convention here!

Photos by Krypton Radio Executive Producer Susan Fox

And guests abounded. The most popular guest by far was Sylvester McCoy, known to Doctor Who fans as the Seventh Doctor, but other guests included:

Freema Agyeman – appeared as Martha Jones, companion to David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, during the third series of Doctor Who in 2007. Freema’s first appearance, however, was as the character’s cousin (retroactively noted, as the producers had loved her earlier appearance) Adeola in the previous season’s “Army of Ghosts,” then officially joined the show opposite Tennant in “Smith and Jones”. While only staying with the role for the one season, she nevertheless reprised her role for five episodes during the following year — “The Sontaran Stratagem,” “The Poison Sky,” “The Doctor’s Daughter,” “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” — and briefly appeared alongside former cast member Noel Clarke in “The End of Time”.

Sylvester McCoy – most recently appearing as Radagast the Brown in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, Sylvester McCoy, a long-time friend of Gallifrey One, has been known for over two decades as the Seventh Doctor. Appearing in the program from 1987-1989 opposite Bonnie Langford and later Sophie Aldred, McCoy later reprised the role in the 1996 FOX Television/BBC Doctor Who TV movie co-production, where he successfully handed off the reigns to Paul McGann after a regeneration sequence.

Phillip Hinchcliffe – Considered to be one of the classic series’ finest and most important producers, Hinchcliffe oversaw the first three seasons of the Tom Baker era – an era noted for many of its important classics (such as “Genesis of the Daleks,” “The Seeds of Doom,” “Pyramids of Mars” and “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”)… and for its now-legendary battle with Mary Whitehouse and the National Viewers & Listeners’ Association over the end of part 3 of “The Deadly Assassin”. Hinchcliffe guided the series through one of its most successful eras.

Deborah Watling – played Victoria Waterfield opposite Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines in 1967-68, from “The Evil of the Daleks” to her departure in “Fury from the Deep”. Though sadly most of her work on the program is lost to the purges of the 1970s, Debbie remains a popular guest at conventions.

Mark Strickson – played Vislor Turlough through two seasons opposite Peter Davison and Janet Fielding. More recently, he reprised the role in several adventures by Big Finish Productions, although he left acting as soon as he left the series and is now a successful filmmaker and documentarist. Convention appearances by Strickson are extremely rare – his last visit to Gallifrey One was twelve years ago!

Peter Purves – played companion Steven Taylor to William Hartnell’s Doctor in the 1960s. Purves later went on to fame as a host on the series Blue Peter. Peter Purves’ appearance at this year’s Gallifrey One was his first.

Saul Metzstein – directed five episodes of series 7 — “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” “A Town Called Mercy” and “The Snowmen” plus two additional episodes yet to air. He also helmed the mini-episodes “Pond Life”. Hailing from Scotland, this is his first visit to a US convention.

Douglas MacKinnon – a well-established director in the UK television field, and has brought his talents to Doctor Who on four separate occasions: directing, in 2008, the two-parter “The Sontaran Strategem” and “The Poison Sky,” more recently as the director behind “The Power of Three” and currently directing an episode of the second half of this season to be aired next spring. MacKinnon is also the director behind the first three episodes of Jekyll, two episodes of Robin Hood, and episodes of Silent Witness, Taggart, Line of Duty, The Last Detective, Soldier Soldier, The Vice, The Bill and many other television productions both in his native Scotland as well as in Cardiff and London.

Ben Browder – known mostly for his iconic roles as John Crichton on “Farscape” and Cameron Mitchell on “Stargate SG-1,” international fan favorite actor Ben Browder recently joined the Doctor Who fold in the seventh series episode “A Town Called Mercy” as Isaac, the town sheriff.

Mark Sheppard – is well known for roles on “Firefly,” “Warehouse 13,” “Supernatural,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Middleman” and “Leverage,” and appeared as Canton Everett Delaware III, the CIA agent who assisted the Doctor, Amy and Rory during series 6 of Doctor Who.

June Hudson – the costume designer during one of the series’ most iconic periods: the latter half of the Tom Baker era, where she was responsible for, among other things, the designs of Baker’s “bohemian” look and of course the widely varying costume work for Lalla Ward’s Romana.

Dick Mills – the legendary sound effects designer of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop made his first appearance at Gallifrey One this year. Dick provided “special sound” for nearly every episode of the series from the early 1970s until the end of its run in 1989; as such, he has the distinction of having more on-screen credits than anyone else in the history of the show.

Michael Jayston – joined the classic Doctor Who series as a regular for the twenty-third season, the landmark “Trial of a Time Lord” serial, as the Valeyard – both the prosecutor of the Doctor as well as his future regeneration, and ultimately as the season’s primary villain. Jayston later returned to the role in Big Finish Productions’ audio series “Unbound” opposite Bonnie Langford in the story “He Jests at Scars”.

Frances Barber – the villain of Series Six herself, Madame Kovarian, also known as “Eye Patch Lady”. A veteran stage performer in Britain, she’s appeared in dozens of television appearances (including a “Red Dwarf” appearance in the episode “Polymorph” in 1989, and in the TV series “Space Precinct”) and in films such as “Prick Up Your Ears,” “Boudica” (aka “Warrior Queen”) and “Still Crazy”; she’s also had regular appearances on “Beautiful People” and “Casualty,” and is now in the cast of the BBC1 drama “Silk”.

Frazer Hines – best known as Jamie McCrimmon in the classic Doctor Who series. A semi-regular at Gallifrey One events, Frazer is incredibly popular with the fan base. He’s still busier than ever, with his occasional appearances in the role in Big Finish’s audio series “The Companion Chronicles” and at conventions around the world.

Daphne Ashbrook – she portrayed Dr. Grace Holloway opposite Paul McGann in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, she was signing the second edition of her book “Last Woman Standing” and her wonderful CD “Grace Notes” (yes, she sings as well). You can hear Daphne on Krypton Radio from time to time doing our station ID!

Shaun Dingwall – Shaun appeared opposite David Tennant in the BBC TV film Learners in 2007, and as David Grant in the BBC reimagining of Survivors. He’s also recently he’s been seen in Camelot, Above Suspicion and New Tricks. Dingwall first appeared in the first series of the revived Doctor Who in “Father’s Day” before later returning with much fanfare in “Rise of the Cybermen,” “The Age of Steel” and “Doomsday”.

Neve McIntosh – appearing in the series six story “A Good Man Goes to War” as the Silurian Madame Vastra, McIntosh’s character (as well as that of her cohort Jenny) proved so popular that Steven Moffat himself has said he’s considered a spinoff series. They’ve since become fan favorites, and have recently returned to the series in “The Snowmen” as well as at least two other episodes of the next part of Series Seven. Neve McIntosh also appeared earlier in the series, in the two-part story “The Hungry Earth” & “The Cold Blood” as the Silurian Alaya and her sister Restac, and has appeared in “Gormenghast,” “Bodies,” “Marple,” “Law & Order: UK” and “Case Histories”.

Richard Hope – appeared during Series 5 as the Silurian scientist Dr. Malokeh in “The Hungry Earth” and “Cold Blood,” and later returned to the role for Series 6’s “The Wedding of River Song”. This past season, he played a new Silurian, Bleytal, in “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”.

Ian McNeice – appeared as Winston Churchill in “Doctor Who” series 5 & 6, McNeice is also a well known character actor whose appearances include “Dune,” “Children of Dune” and HBO’s “Rome”.

Nina Toussaint-White – cast in the pivotal guest role of Mels (later revealed to be River Song’s first incarnation) in the series six episode “Let’s Kill Hitler” in 2011.

Chase Masterson – best known as Leeta, the waitress/dabo girl who became Quark’s sister-in-law on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” Chase Masterson is a central figure in science fiction television fandom and recently began work on her own series “Vienna” for Big Finish Productions, a Doctor Who spinoff series.

Finn Jones – played Santiago Jones, the grandson of Katy Manning’s Jo Grant (aka Jo Jones) who teamed up with Lis Sladen and Matt Smith in the Sarah Jane story “Death of the Doctor”. Of course, television viewers now know him for a much more prominent role: as Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, on HBO’s landmark series “Game of Thrones”. Although Finn is known predominantly as an actor, he is also a DJ with the London based collective called Human Effort.

Nicholas Pegg – a writer & director with both an extensive repetoire with Big Finish as well as a regular job on the current series of Doctor Who as a Dalek operator, appearing in nine episodes of the new show, most recently in “Victory of the Daleks” (and, we hear, in the next series too!) In his capacity as a Dalek operator, he has also appeared in person on Blue Peter, and in many editions of the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential. He has also written (and hosted/interviewed in) numerous features for the BBC’s range of Doctor Who DVD releases.

Sarah Douglas - you know her as Ursa from the first two Superman movies.

Scott Handcock – author, Big Finish audio script writer and Doctor Who series six production secretary.

Paul J. Salamoff – a comics writer/publisher & screenwriter, he is also the owner of the newly restored TARDIS console from the American Doctor Who movie for television used on screen by Paul McGann and Sylvester McCoy.

Next year we hope to have a panel or two directly at Gallifrey One. Watch this space.

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